Author Information At the Circulating Library

Author: Eleanor Stredder (1835–1913)

Biography: Eleanor Stredder was born in 1835 in Royston, Cambridgeshire, the daughter of upholster Edward Stredder and Mary Abbott. She was one of five siblings: her brother William (who followed his father into business), schoolteacher Ann, author Sarah, and Harriet. None of them married and Eleanor lived with one or more of her siblings for the rest of her life. She contributed to periodicals and wrote two novels: The Raven of Redruth (1862) and The Price of Silence (1873). In the 1890s, Eleanor wrote a series of colonial and foreign stories for children beginning with Jack and his Ostrich (1890) set in South Africa. Late in life, she co-wrote Shrouded in Mystery (1901) with her sisters Sarah and Harriet. She died in 1913 in Hertfordshire.